EH - Essex > Hebrides...the next step of the adventure?

EssexHebridean · 31 January 2022 at 12:26PM

I'm planning on going tomorrow evening Paws - only £110 for that one on a cost-per-use basis!

It certainly is incentivising me to go at the moment though - wanting to see that figure drop.

Yesterday ended up being a fairly laid back day but one where we did get some outstanding jobs done. My car washed (she's beautifully shiny red again rather than the unpleasant grey-ish black she' turned into!) and filled with fuel, the shopping done including some of the stocking-up stuff, the curtain pole in the front room that had come loose a couple of weeks ago but needed daylight AND two people to fix sorted out so we can pull the curtains again! We'd also decided that some of the parsnips from the veg box could go to make soup - so I made a double batch of butternut squash and parsnip with curry spices. we had half last night with a tin of chickpeas and some fried cubed chorizo thrown in - SO tasty! The rest will be for tomorrow evening and I'll serve that up in much the same way I think.

- Banking is checked - MrEH is paid which is always good! I'll give Mr Boss a nudge later on to sort mine if he's not done it by lunchtime.
- Need to remind MrEH this evening that he needs to sort out his access to the C0v BS and get the new Reg Saver set up.
- Once MrEH is back logged in to C0v then he also needs to extract the previous Reg Saver money to somewhere to be agreed, but intially just to the joint account. The plan for that is that some will be left in a savings account to drip-feed the new N@tionw1de reg savers and the final lump will head off to see our pal M@rcus!

- I need to work out if my car got serviced last year - if not she'll need to be done this time round, but otherwise she'll be due on time but not on miles I think. definitely needs checking though - that's a a job for this evening
- my car MoT Test needs booking with Neil - makes sense to find out about the service first though.
- MrEH needs to give the garage the OK for his car now. There will be around £250 for us to pay but it's certainly better tan I was fearing. Disappointing that Peugeot consider corrosion to the point of parts failing to be an "everyday occurrence" on their vehicles in this day and age though - and yes, we've had that in writing from them! it would definitely put me off buying another one which is a shame as other than that we've been pleased with the car.

Cheery_Daff · 31 January 2022 at 12:44PM

Gosh, that's outrageous with the car! Glad it didn't cost as much as feared though.

I might work out cost per use of my gym - as far as I know there's not an annual membership, but doing tmit monthly, and trying to get below the pay as you go cost, would be a nice incentive each month!

RelievedSheff · 31 January 2022 at 1:53PM

That is shocking from the car manufacturers. How can they say that?

EssexHebridean · 1 February 2022 at 11:08AM

Cheery - I decided it would be a great way of reminding me to go on those chilly nights when just getting home and curling up on the sofa seems a better option!

RS - I know - I mean I know years ago French car manufacturers had an awful record on rusting, but I've pretty much always had French cars and can categorically say that I've seen no issues with corrosion on either Citroen (I've had 2, MrEH has had 2) or Renault (I've had 4 Clios now - the last one had some rust forming when I got rid of it but that was only on an area of replaced bodywork - not on the original body of the car!) in the last 20 years. The idea that there are still manufacturers out there who are content to just accept rust as an everyday occurrence really shocked me!

Anyway...we have some thinking to do about MrEH's car I guess - a nuisance for sure as we thought we had it sorted and that what we had would work really well for us - it does work well for us, but won't if we're going to have to be spending out on welding etc pretty much from the start.

We've both now been paid and I have done the money shuffle - and this time that includes my personal money transferring to my new personal account with Sant-And-Er. Now I just need to remember to use that card! I HAVE left a buffer in my old account over and above what is needed for DD's just in case though. Tried to open the "feeder" account we'll want for the new N@tionw1de reg savers but I think they've got an issue with their account opening process at the moment as it got right to the very end then timed out - MrEH had a similar problem all day yesterday too. I'll ty again from the PC in a bit and if that doesnt work I'll leave it for now - there's no rush because MrEH needs to sort out extracting the money from the C0v3ntry first anyway.

Signed up for Ipsos surveys yesterday and have three sitting there to do - thanks @GeorgianaCavendish for recommending them as good to do! I've also done 2 small OnePoll ones this morning too. Prolific is still seriously quiet for me though which is annoying. (And woo - just discovered I can cash Ipsos out to iTunes vouchers among other things - that's properly useful! )

GeorgianaCavendish · 1 February 2022 at 12:25PM

Glad you are finding Ipsos useful so far

I've had a few product tests (laundry detergent, washing up liquid ... all the glamorous things!) via them as well so keeps it interesting!

EssexHebridean · 2 February 2022 at 11:06AM

Good to know - I'm hoping I'll settle in a bit more on not getting so many screenouts once I've done a few more - after posting about it yesterday every other survey I tried to do during the day was either not available after all, or I got screened out of after - in some cases - about 5 minutes answering questions. I've dumped survey sites before on the basis that they all too often use screen-outs as a way of getting info for free so I'll be doing the same with Ipsos if that doesn't change. not until I've extracted my first lot of rewards mind you! Had one earning 51 points first thing today but everything else has drawn a blank. one did give me three points as "not a good match" just for clicking through though!

Prolific still stalled on £10.67 paid
OnePoll 260 points
Ipsos 164 points

Spotted in the MSE email this week that there is a good chance of another interest rate rise - which is for us rather excellent news obviously. Sorry for those it means less good news for though! I suspect that M@rcus are waiting to see what happens there before they announce any rises so it will be interesting to see if they do something fairly soon after. They've got a pretty good record on reacting fairly to rate changes until now, so I'd be surprised if they didn't. Just renewed the bonus rates on both accounts, anyway.

I also need to remember that right now there is £500 sitting in the joint account that shouldn't be there as MrEH has still not been able to sort out his new regular saver with C0v3ntry. He assures me it will be done today... where's that rolling eyes emoji when you need it?! Once he's done that, I should be able to transfer the £200 for this month to my Flex regular saver as well - I'm reluctant to do it yet as it would leave the Joint account a little short if for any reason he hits a problems transferring the money across.

There feels like a lot of financial balls in the air at once now - I need to write a list of what is going to all the savings accounts I think as it's all feeling a bit overwhelming at the minute. Also still need to
- open the new N@tionw1de account as the "feeder" for the Flex regulars...I did try yesterday but it timed me out at the end of the process.
- Once the money has landed there set up the regular transfers for those
- transfer the balance of MrEH's Reg saver money across to M@rcus
- remember that the Council Tax/water rates money this month is to head to either M@rcus or PB's.
- open the savings account for my gym neutral fund
- Have a think about any other savings accounts we no longer want - T3sc0 for a start? The old Holiday fund account?

MrEH's car is fixed and ready to collect - there should be £250 to pay there I think and he plans to collect tomorrow morning. It'll be good to have it back - not least as getting my foldy bike in and out of the boot on mine is a bit of a nightmare.